18 months from launch (I hope)

[erkevin]

Hello Everyone,
I have been lurking for a few months and decided to introduce myself. I am a 51 year old school principal, 18 months from my full pension. I am not sure if I am going to completely stop there or maybe do something else in the same retirement system to make it to 30 years. I just know that public education is not in part 2 of my life (27 years as an administrator and teacher). My wife wants to go 30 years- she is a teacher.
We have no debt except for a mortgage at about 98k at 3%. Empty-nesters, we are. Our pensions will cover our cost of living with no problem, but health insurance is my biggest concern financially. I am working on increasing our emergency fund to get it to 90-100k by retirement. The fund is in a Roth, TSA's and cash. This fund is for life's little unexpected bumps in the road and a car. We should be able to further pad the fund in the first 5-7 years of retirement. Using several different retirement calculators, we come out fine but at ages 59 to 61, we come up a little short (I indexed our expenses for inflation). Again, the emergency fund may be necessary here. Unsure about social security; file and suspend or my wife draws at 62 and I at 67. Time for that decision later.
Although i have a lot of interests and hobbies, I am not sure I want to completely stop working. Working part-time in something "fun" will certainly help with the insurance premiums and during the couple of leaner years.
Anyway, I certainly enjoy this board and wisdom therein.

 

[Grigori]

Did you include Social Security? It could give you a bump, and help shift cash to the gap years.

If you are that close, I hope you have been tracking monthly expenses in a detailed way for some months/years.

Remember that taxes should go down. You've probably used Taxcaster, or Turbo Tax.

Check the threads on health insurance.

Sounds like you'll have plenty of time to sort things out, and see how much part time, if any you want. Welcome !

 

[erkevin]

launch in 18 months

I have the expenses down to the cent. I have been using Quicken since the mid-90's and Mint for the past 18 months.
We won't qualify for a ACA subsidy, so I am figuring close to 1k a month for both of our policies (initially). That is very painful! Truthfully, I have only just begun the initial insurance planning.
Arizona used to have a unique retirement plan called "levelized" They determined your expected social security and used that figure to levelize your retirement payments over your life (as opposed to the big bump at 62 or 67/70). AZ got rid of it last year.
There is a COLA in the retirement plan but it has been suspended for a few years, so I am not counting on that to offset inflation, hence the trouble in the years right before SS.